- 18 Oct 2004
- 2,497
- 110
From the Japan Times:
'Done it' marriages multiply
By GEOFF BOTTING
When Morning Musume singer Nozomi Tsuji, 19, announced her marriage earlier this month to actor Taiyo Sugiura, she had something to add 窶 she was nine weeks into pregnancy.
The disclosure caused a stir. After all, the starlet is a teen member of a wildly popular all-girl group with a squeaky clean image.
Yet for celebrity hounds, the shotgun nature of the marriage was nothing new. Some of the country's biggest stars have married well after conception. The last six months alone have seen such marriages between bikini model Miho Yoshioka and actor Haru Mie, while baseball players Tomoya Yagi and Tetsuya Utsumi married women several months into their pregnancies.
But it's not just celebrities who enter into shotgun marriages 窶 called dekichatta kekkon (or dekikon for short) in Japanese, literally meaning "done it marriage." The same trend exists among the Japanese public, Shukan Post points out. In fact, about a quarter of all married couples with children have taken their vows while the bride was expecting. It's a number that's risen sharply in the last few years. Back in 1980, by comparison, such marriages accounted for only 12.6 percent of all unions in Japan.
What's more, as the marriages become more common, they're also becoming more acceptable. More than 50 percent of males and females at high school and university agreed that dekikon were nothing to be concerned about, a poll released last year by the Japanese Association of Sex Education found.
For many of the companies that plan and conduct wedding ceremonies, meanwhile, dekikon means profits. Dekikon weddings tend to be quicker, easier and therefore cheaper to stage than usual, say industry officials.
"Usually, weddings take about six months of preparation, but we shrink that to a month," says Fumio Aoki, a representative of Ladirb, where about half of the 300 couples that the company handles yearly have already "done it." "We go out to meet the couples, draw up (guest) lists and get the invitations sent out really quickly."
Why the need for promptly scheduled ceremonies? To head off the later stages of pregnancy, when the event could be marred by the bride's morning sickness and other physical problems.
Although dekikon these days aren't viewed as a big moral problem, that wasn't always the case, according to Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Tokyo Gakugei University.
"Until the 1980s, premarital sex was not normally tolerated. It was common for the (pregnant woman's) family to feel shame and for the parents to refuse to attend the wedding. Many couples would choose abortions," Yamada says.
Why the sudden change in attitudes? A more tolerant generation of parents, answers Atsushi Miura, a commentator and expert on consumer behavior.
"The children of the baby boomer generation started to become adults around 1995. And back when the baby boomers came of age, it was an era of sexual liberation. So these are the parents of today's dekikon couples, and they don't feel a sense of shame about it."
Nor do their kids. During her wedding announcement, Tsuji flashed a big smile and showed off her engagement ring, radiating nothing but pure happiness and contentment.
***
'Done it' marriages multiply
By GEOFF BOTTING
When Morning Musume singer Nozomi Tsuji, 19, announced her marriage earlier this month to actor Taiyo Sugiura, she had something to add 窶 she was nine weeks into pregnancy.
The disclosure caused a stir. After all, the starlet is a teen member of a wildly popular all-girl group with a squeaky clean image.
Yet for celebrity hounds, the shotgun nature of the marriage was nothing new. Some of the country's biggest stars have married well after conception. The last six months alone have seen such marriages between bikini model Miho Yoshioka and actor Haru Mie, while baseball players Tomoya Yagi and Tetsuya Utsumi married women several months into their pregnancies.
But it's not just celebrities who enter into shotgun marriages 窶 called dekichatta kekkon (or dekikon for short) in Japanese, literally meaning "done it marriage." The same trend exists among the Japanese public, Shukan Post points out. In fact, about a quarter of all married couples with children have taken their vows while the bride was expecting. It's a number that's risen sharply in the last few years. Back in 1980, by comparison, such marriages accounted for only 12.6 percent of all unions in Japan.
What's more, as the marriages become more common, they're also becoming more acceptable. More than 50 percent of males and females at high school and university agreed that dekikon were nothing to be concerned about, a poll released last year by the Japanese Association of Sex Education found.
For many of the companies that plan and conduct wedding ceremonies, meanwhile, dekikon means profits. Dekikon weddings tend to be quicker, easier and therefore cheaper to stage than usual, say industry officials.
"Usually, weddings take about six months of preparation, but we shrink that to a month," says Fumio Aoki, a representative of Ladirb, where about half of the 300 couples that the company handles yearly have already "done it." "We go out to meet the couples, draw up (guest) lists and get the invitations sent out really quickly."
Why the need for promptly scheduled ceremonies? To head off the later stages of pregnancy, when the event could be marred by the bride's morning sickness and other physical problems.
Although dekikon these days aren't viewed as a big moral problem, that wasn't always the case, according to Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Tokyo Gakugei University.
"Until the 1980s, premarital sex was not normally tolerated. It was common for the (pregnant woman's) family to feel shame and for the parents to refuse to attend the wedding. Many couples would choose abortions," Yamada says.
Why the sudden change in attitudes? A more tolerant generation of parents, answers Atsushi Miura, a commentator and expert on consumer behavior.
"The children of the baby boomer generation started to become adults around 1995. And back when the baby boomers came of age, it was an era of sexual liberation. So these are the parents of today's dekikon couples, and they don't feel a sense of shame about it."
Nor do their kids. During her wedding announcement, Tsuji flashed a big smile and showed off her engagement ring, radiating nothing but pure happiness and contentment.
***
but even so my instinctive response was not to do it, and if I ever was in that situation it would make me even less likely to agree to get married... I'd be like 'wait a couple of years and then see if you still want to!'
